Inevitably, back inside the lab, Sereno had to request a 2nd opinion from colleagues who labored on fossil fish together with other reptiles before he figured it out.

Wafer-slim fossils with slim bone plates usually are not the easiest points to preserve and research. But dag nabit, another person's gotta get it done!

Fossils of the dinosaur had been first explained in 1976, but it absolutely was only named Nigersaurus taqueti in 1999, following further more and a lot more entire continues to be ended up discovered and described. The genus title means "Niger reptile", and the particular identify honours the palaeontologist Philippe Taquet, who identified the primary continues to be.

It's thought that these sauropod dinosaurs collected foods working with their huge, wide mouths, much like grazing in modern day cows. They might probably happen to be “nonselective” inside their diet. two. Nigersaurus was among the list of initial dinosaurs to obtain a CT scan

Continuous Tooth Substitute: Teeth have been replaced each and every 14 times, ensuring a sharp, functional dental battery to manage with regular use from grazing.

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Nigersaurus's feeding system was not like all kinds of other dinosaurs. Its broad, flat jaw was adapted for grazing close to the ground, earning it the nickname "Mesozoic Cow."

The dental constructions of Nigersaurus also propose they ate delicate vegetation in massive amounts to meet their nutritional needs. They largely ate angiosperms, horsetails, and ferns as foods. Many paleontologists also feel that their five hundred carefully packed teeth arrangement also functioned just like a comb. This comb-like teeth arrangement could have also assisted them in filtering and ingesting aquatic vegetation.

Nigersaurus experienced a jaw structure contrary to another dinosaur. Its broad, squared-off muzzle housed around five hundred slender, pencil-like teeth. These teeth weren't evenly dispersed but were arranged in columns and rows, with as lots of as nine replacement teeth behind Each individual active tooth.

The authors as a result cautioned versus making use of semicircular canals as proxy to infer the precise orientation of skulls. They found that diet plan correlated strongly with semicircular canal orientation, although not with head posture, when head posture and semicircular canal orientation have been strongly correlated with phylogeny.[25]

 Everyday living restoration Nigersaurus was distinct in that its dorsal (again) vertebrae had paired pneumatic spaces at The bottom from the neural spines (the spines that projected upwards with the vertebrae). The presacral vertebrae (vertebrae in front of the sacrum) had been intensely pneumatised to the point the place the column consisted of the series of hollow "shells", Just about every divided by a thin septum in the middle. It experienced very little to no cancellous bone, creating the centra slim bone plates crammed with air spaces. The vertebral arches ended up so heavily pierced by extensions in the exterior air sacs that in their side walls very little remained but 2 mm (0.

The 500 teeth dinosaur Nigersaurus, with its 500 teeth, showcases the marvels of evolution. Its specialized dental anatomy, tailored to its surroundings and diet program, serves as being a testomony into the adaptability and variety of prehistoric daily life.

Nigersaurus was named and explained in additional detail by Sereno and colleagues only in 1999, determined by continues to be of freshly identified individuals. Exactly the same post also named Jobaria, A different sauropod from Niger. The genus name Nigersaurus ("Niger reptile") is actually a reference towards the place wherever it absolutely was found, and the precise name taqueti honours Taquet, who was the main to organise substantial-scale palaeontological expeditions to Niger.

The rapid tooth alternative suggests that it principally fed on gentle, abrasive crops, which would don down its teeth rapidly.